We love shouting out to Udacity students who have used our classes as launch pads for truly amazing accomplishments, and we’re very excited to congratulate high school student Liezel Puzon for being named a grand prize winner in the Google Code-In 2012!

Liezel made her first appearance on our blog when her and her team at Freehold High School won the high school challenge at Udacity. She has involved herself in projects beyond what she’s learned in our Introduction to Computer Science class. Liezel applied her new programming skills by joining the Sahana Software Foundation, an open source mentoring organization, and participating the the Google Code-In 2012. During the 7 week contest, she completed 28 tasks for the open source project.

Out of the 334 students from 36 countries who competed in the contest, Liezel has been named one of 20 grand prize winners – Congrats Liezel, you rock!

We’d love to hear how other students have been inspired by our classes to “Learn. Think. Do.” Whether you’ve discovered a new passion, started a new project, or gained a few new friends, share your Udacity stories with us at social (at) udacity.com!

I agree with noswald, you cannot ask the Government to pay for your living expense so that you can focus on taking online courses full time; even for those students who enrolled in private research institution that costs tens of thousands dollar a year, their federal aid is only about covering the tuition cost, they all have to get part-time jobs to support their own living.

no they don't. federal aid can be spent on whatever you want, it can simply be a loan for a student.obviously loans will cover room+board at a college campus. when i was in school full time, i was not working. i needed money for supplies, texts, transportation, room + board, food, living expenses. There would be no point to the federal aid if it didn't allow me to

Hey this is Aneesh Dogra. I won Google Code in 2012 and Google Code-in 2011 [2 years consecutively] and have been a udacity student since 2012 Feb. I sent an email reporting my win and thanking the udacity fellows but no one responded. Anyway, I am from India and will be visiting the bay area in April is it possible for udacity guys to host a tour? I mean I'd love to meet Prof. Dave, Prof.